One stop shop: The media center offers computers, laptops, books and a place to study, but only between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. For some these hours are simply not extensive enough. 
It’s 4:30 p.m. on a dreary Friday evening, and I’m stuck at school, waiting for the boys baseball game to start. In desperation to complete my online homework I rush to the Media Center in hopes of finding a computer, only to figure out that the Media Center had closed just a few minutes ago. I really need to finish my Math XL, and there’s no way I’m going to complete it here.
The library is a hub for student life at RBHS. The room, lined with books, bustles with activity day-in, day-out. Computers are constantly occupied with the faces of worried students who forgot their visual essay was do that day. Mr. Dennis Murphy roams the room, and Mrs. Beth Hempke Shapiro helps classes check out laptops. It’s not a quiet place, as students pass through to get to their next class even though the sign clearly says not to.
“School library media centers in the 21st century can, and should be, hubs for increased student achievement and positive focused school reform,” said Kathleen D. Smith, an award-winning advocate for the usage of libraries. Now that a new era of technology has risen and will continue to rise, we need media centers more than ever. With homework, tests and quizzes being online, it’s hard to access those things without a computer, and that’s when begin to see the importance of libraries.
Books are abundant and computers sit at a stand-still once closing time comes around and honestly it confuses me. Why would a Media Center, so keen to provide for their intellectuals in every possible way, lock its doors only half an hour after school lets out? Plenty of students stay after school, yet none have access to the most convenient, resourceful part of RBHS.
I understand the librarians have lives and families to be with, but as a learner it’s frustrating to need a place to go after school to complete homework and not have the resources you need.
Students and faculty use the Media Center all the time. We should increase the amount of time the library is open after school by at least a little bit. As students, we need to advocate for the after school usage of the library by asking administration to begin keeping the Media Center open a little bit longer at the beginning of next year.